


On the Other Side

by TheGrandQueen01



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cyberpunk, Human Experimentation, Illegal Activities, Kidnapping, M/M, Some characters consent to the experimentation done on them and some don't, Violence, side bokuaka
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGrandQueen01/pseuds/TheGrandQueen01
Summary: Tokyo is a city steeped in corruption, class struggle, and underground wars. The Elite turn a blind eye to the suffering of others and secretly invest in illegal organizations striving to surpass the boundaries of humanity. Iwaizumi leaves the relative quiet and old-fashioned city of Sendai and dives deep into that which lurks beneath Tokyo’s neon surface in search of his missing best friend. He finds the Night Watch, a group dedicated to tearing down the circles of illegal human trafficking that supply subjects for experimentation in Cybernetics and Genetic Modification. He and the others work together to find Oikawa and to make sure no other child suffers the same fate.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Kuroo Tetsurou, Iwaizumi Hajime/Kuroo Tetsurou/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	On the Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! After some serious technical difficulties, I’m finally able to post my piece for the Cyberpunk Bang! I’m glad you decided to read this!  
> I’m going to start this off with somewhat of a blanket warning: there is violence and nsfw themes in this work, as I have already tagged. Please be mindful of them and aware of your own comfort levels. I’ve done my best to warn readers of what’s to come, but just as a general disclaimer: there are potentially triggering things going on in this fic! Proceed with caution please.  
> I’m going to do my best to update every other week, but mostly updates will depend on how quickly I can edit while working on my thesis. Please be patient with me!

Oikawa knew in his bones that the needles, which brought cold and pain, would not kill him. He knew that the unfamiliar men and women in white or blue lab coats could crack open his genetic code, and he knew it would not be enough to destroy him. He knew of them, the organizations that employed hundreds of scientists and kidnapped people off the street for experiments pushing the boundaries of the human body, and then sold it all off to the highest bidder. He knew that they would try to change him, that they would give him instincts and abilities that were from other creatures in an attempt to unlock more about the secret of immortality.

He knew because that was how humanity had raised the average life expectancy to nearly two centuries and how they’d survived the food shortages and the droughts and the pollution. Experimentation. Pushing science to its absolute limit then going further. He read a million books about this kind of thing. He’d watched every movie, every documentary, with rapt attention—a fascination he’d adopted from his sister.

So he also knew that the police would never find him. There would be weeks or months or years of pain until the scientists accomplished whatever they set out to do. Oikawa could see it all stretch out before him, flashes of scenes from all the media he consumed running through his head—the drugs in his system, the knives against his flesh, the blood, the tears and begging and screaming that never would be answered. There were other horrors, surely, that he couldn’t even imagine. And when they were done they’d keep him in a cage or parade him around as proof for potential investors that the scientists were successful.

He didn’t know which organization had taken him, but it didn’t really matter. He was royally fucked either way. He didn’t know when the pain already making a home in his chest would vacate the premises. He didn’t know a lot of things, and he hated it, hated the uncertainty almost more than the murmurs of the monsters in the room with him.

His bones were fracturing from the inside out, his joints were coming apart, his skin was melting away, and his blood—his blood—was boiling away his consciousness. It burned and it burned and it burned, an intense contrast to the freezing restraints rubbing against his naked, ravaged skin and the liquid ice being pumped into his disintegrating veins.

Oikawa wasn’t afraid of death, not really, because he didn’t think these scientists could beat him. Iwaizumi had called him a fighter for as long as he could remember, a survivor, someone who could overcome any obstacle. And the voice in his head, Iwaizumi’s voice, told him this was just another obstacle to overcome.

The pain ebbed and flowed, sometimes little more than a frustrating itch as he floated in a state of drugged half-consciousness, sometimes so intense he forgot that there was life beyond the suffering. He focused on things that were not pain: the rasping footsteps of the scientists against the lab’s sterile white floor, the low murmurs too confusing to parse, his name—he repeated at nauseam, who he was and why they would not win—and Iwaizumi. He thought of Iwaizumi the most. He could almost forget the hands of the scientists touching him when he played an afternoon catching beetles and eating popsicles behind his eyelids, he could pretend there wasn’t a constant pounding in his skull when he relived their first kiss. He imagined their anniversary date, that he was missing because of the _bastard_ _scientists_ , with dinner and movies and star gazing.

Or maybe he’d already missed it. Time was a foreign concept under the haze of drugs.

Iwaizumi’s voice trickled through the worst of the pain, distracting him with familiar words—encouragement and scoldings he’d received in a thousand different forms from years of volleyball practices. A smattering of “You’re the best partner I could have asked for,” and “they’re just another opponent for us to overcome,” and “i’m here,” echoed through his head.

But Iwaizumi wasn’t there, and Oikawa didn’t want him to be. The scientists could do whatever they wanted with their patronizing smiles and their grubby hands to him, but they were not allowed to touch his Iwa-chan.

Oikawa gritted his teeth against the infinite cold and pain. Fragments of memories played against the backs of his eyelids when he closed them against the bright florescent lights above him. There were faces and voices pushing back against the cold, reminding him of the warmth of a time out of his reach.

The warmth was becoming dull though, the cold finally winning out. The faces blurred and the voices faded until only one remained.

Names were such a distant, insignificant concept in the face of the pain, and the cold, and the isolation of the endless, dark, half-consciousness the scientists kept him trapped in. Pink hair and soft brown curls and a lullaby all floated away, so far out of reach that the boy couldn’t even remember that he had been reaching for something to begin with.

Every second brought more of an emptiness, a lack, in his mind, a rapid cooling of the warmth brought on by clinging to his past. He held desperately to the brightest of the faces, fixated on the green eyes and the spiked hair until the scientists forced him awake for another oral exam. He breathed the name into a hidden place behind his ribs to keep it safe from the scientists, but they stole it, pried apart his rib cage and pulled out his treasure the next time the drugs dragged him into the cold, impersonal darkness.

The boy could hear a gruff voice echoing in his skull, a constant reminder to keep fighting. Because the person behind the green eyes and the voice was waiting for him, and the boy _had_ to get back to that person. So instead of letting go and simply floating like the scientists wanted, like the drugs wanted, like he wanted, in a place where pain was a long-forgotten concept, the boy fought to yank himself back into the light where his person waited for him. He wriggled away from phantom hands and crawled through tight spaces until he could grasp at the warm, rough hand always waiting for him.

Sometimes something pricked against the skin of his thigh or arm, and his mind cleared of everything but the sensation of hands attaching something uncomfortable over his face and removing the bands of ice keeping him always in the same place. They were good times. They put him in something wet, and cold—colder than the restraints he had long since stopped trying to resist—and he floated. The pain floated too, far away from him, and the cold kept him so numb he couldn’t hear the whispers of the people keeping him hurting and on the edge of consciousness. That was when he saw the person from his memory the most clearly. He couldn’t tell if they were memories or just dreams, but he and the mystery boy caught beetles and ate watermelon and passed a ball between them in the light of the setting sun.

“Oikawa,” the precious person would call him, and before being dragged from the dream he remembered himself and smiled. He was Oikawa Tooru, and this person was waiting for him to return.

For him, the the boy of memory whose name he’d forgotten along with his own the instant they left those dreams, he fought to keep close to the pain, because pain meant life and survival and a chance to meet again.

Iwaizumi crouched on the ledge of the slick rooftop and looked out over the neon city. Rain did little to ruin the bright, artificial beauty of Tokyo at night. Cupped between his hands to protect the small, fragile pictures inside, Iwaizumi sheltered the open locket that had been hanging around his neck since Oikawa disappeared. In the dim light reaching from the multitude of neon signs, Iwaizumi could just make out Oikawa’s face smiling up at him, one arm wrapped around a fifteen-year-old Iwaizumi’s neck and the other thrown up in a peace sign.

Behind him, the old roof door screeched open on rusted hinges and shut with a familiar _bang_. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Kuroo seeking him out—Akaashi made a constant effort to keep Bokuto away from the roof in case he got the sudden urge to fly, and Kenma wouldn’t walk up the two flights of stairs the elevator didn’t reach unless he really wanted to catch Iwaizumi alone. Kuroo made a habit of disturbing Iwaizumi’s rooftop brooding, though. He didn’t approve, especially when it was raining so hard. He’d say something stupid about how Iwaizumi would get sick, as if Kuroo himself hadn’t Enhanced Iwaizumi’s immune system to the point something as annoyingly insignificant as a cold couldn’t touch him.

Iwaizumi rolled his neck from side to side, relishing in the cracks that caused Kuroo to shiver as he approached.

“You know I hate when you do that,” he said, and sat down so they were pressed up tight against each other.

Iwaizumi could feel the heat radiating from the human heater beside him through both of their soaked sweatshirts. Kuroo didn’t even bother being subtle; he just raked his too-observant cat eyes over Iwaizumi’s person. He was thinking so loud Iwaizumi could practically hear the thoughts bouncing around his head.

This was far from the first time they’d done this, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. Iwaizumi ended most of his days, if he was physically able, up on the roof, staring at the old photos in Oikawa’s locket until his eyes drooped and he dragged himself to bed. Kuroo was usually the one hauling his sorry ass back down the stairs to the floor the Night Watch renovated to look more like a dorm or a set of apartments instead of offices.

Beyond them, the neon city glowed bright, its artificial beauty unhindered by the downpour. It had been years since Iwaizumi’s first trip, when the lights, projections, and screens were foreign entities, and when the idea of a full-scale underground war was the last thing on his mind. He’d been young and naive and desperately missing his best friend.

He still desperately missed Oikawa, still went to bed and woke up thinking about him, but he certainly wasn’t as naive as he’d once been. The city had chased the country boy from his skin, leaving only a man on a mission to find his best friend and make the people that took him pay.

Kuroo broke their hour-long silence first. “We’re close, you know. We’ll find him.”

Iwaizumi knew that was true. He knew Oikawa was alive, thanks to Akaashi, and he knew that the increased number of clashes they’d had with Odium members meant it was more and more likely he’d find Oikawa on the other side of one of his missions. It was only a matter of what Oikawa would do when that happened, and how Iwaizumi would react.

Iwaizumi turned away from the city, blocking out what little light managed to illuminate the locket. He snapped the clasp shut and turned towards Kuroo for the first time since he’d settled in. For once, the rooster released its hold of Kuroo’s hair. Strips of black hair clung to Kuroo’s damp skin and obscured his eyes even more than normal.

“What if Akaashi’s right, and whatever they did to his brain means he’s too far gone? What if he doesn’t even recognize me?”

Kuroo had the decency not to roll his eyes. “You’ve said again and again that that could never happen. For years. To the point that even Bokuto wants to shut you up.”

“But what if—“

“Bokuto did it. He survived Odium’s experiments and he’s…mostly sane.”

That pulled a smile from Iwaizumi, but it disappeared just as fast. “Akaashi made it very clear that what they did to Bokuto was done over years, and mostly when he was a kid. Kids are more resilient to Enhancement, especially the big kind. Akaashi said-“

“You really need to stop listening to Akaashi’s doomsday predictions.”

Iwaizumi glared at him. “He’s the most well informed on Odium’s methods-“

“And you’re the most well informed on all things Oikawa. Look,” Kuroo sighed. “There’s no way for us to know exactly what we’re going to find when we get to Oikawa, so let’s just take it one thing at a time, huh? We find him, and then we’ll deal with whatever comes next. That’s kinda our thing, remember?”

Iwaizumi let out a long breath and nodded slowly. “Right. Right.”

Kuroo bumped their shoulders together gently, mindful of how easy it would be for them to drop over the side of the building and fall to their death. “C’mon. You need sleep, I need sleep. Don’t make me stay up waiting for you to stop being self destructive any longer.”

“What are you, an old man?”

“Yes, a very old man with cat like tendencies.”

Iwaizumi pursed his lips but stood up because Kuroo was right, they should sleep. And the stupid bastard would absolutely stay up with him just to make him feel bad. But he was wrong, too. Self destruction wasn’t his thing, it was Oikawa’s. Iwaizumi was just stubborn and holding onto the last good memory he had of Oikawa, rain pouring down on them out of nowhere and Oikawa choosing to cut his losses and dance in the street rather than run for nonexistent cover.

He took a deep breath, and when he exhaled he let the memory fade. Kuroo gave him a look he’d become far too familiar with since Oikawa’s disappearance, one that Oikawa used to give him. _I see you_ , those eyes said. It made him want to hit something—because it wasn’t Oikawa looking at him like that, because he wanted the thing between him and Kuroo so much it hurt yet it tasted like betrayal. Iwaizumi trudged down six flights of stairs, ignoring the elevator Kuroo had clearly been angling for after the first two. He wanted to walk into the night, but it was a bad idea. Trouble always caught him on nights like this, and he’d already been a big enough pain in Kuroo’s ass for one night.

Instead he made a beeline for his room, ignoring Kuroo’s intrusion in his space to strip off his coat and the clothes beneath it before falling face first onto his bed. He wanted a hug, but he wouldn’t ask and Kuroo wouldn’t offer.

The boy opened his eyes not to the bright smile of someone he loved, but to the bright, florescent lab lights. He could pick out the dust motes floating in the air above him, and the scent of antiseptic and someone’s cologne burned his nostrils, too strong in the otherwise scentless room. He could hear the breath of every person in the room, all four of them just slightly out of sync.

“AJ-1,” the scientist closest to the cold table said, smiling proudly at him. “Good morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times before but comments and kudos are always helpful motivation! You can also find me on tumblr or twitter @afranticfox!


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